An adventure in Hertfordshire archaeology.

On the shore of the lake or, using the mag to herd swans

Last Friday saw us continuing our advance toward the Splash Pool, although, given the weather, maybe the lure of the cafe is drawing us on! Jim West, Mike Smith, and Stuart Henderson turned out to help, along with Birkbeck students Frederick Hepworth and Ola O’Brien, who had been inspired by Ellen’s lecture. Former YAC member Benjamin Sharkey also joined in the fun in the afternoon. Our thanks to all of them for braving the cold and helping get lots done.

Whilst on the subject of thanks, they are also due to Jenny West, who has made us a wonderful fitted bag for the dismantled cart. It is great and helps both with moving it around and making it safer in storage. Every mag cart should have one.

Our lovely new bag.

We managed another couple of rows of grids. We are now right up to the path and the splash pool. A few awkward partials to complete as we go around the cafe etc.

The survey as of 22nd November 2013.

Looking at the recent area in more detail, we can see the two roads very nicely, one running NW to SE and the other NE to SW. Interestingly, SE of the junction the road appears to be much narrower than the same road to the NW. To the south of the road we can see a very clear building just clipped by our survey. This building appears on the map of the town kindly scanned earlier in the year by Ralph Potter. It is identified as Insula XL Building 2 — and was originally located by crop marks seen in aerial photos and during a watching brief from the 1930s.

Detail of the latest area completed 22nd November 2013.

We managed another two grids of resistance data, making an area 60m by 40m. There are clearly various buildings, but the pattern is not easy to interpret. It would be very helpful to try a 1m spaced probe configuration in order to look a little deeper into the soil.

Resistance data overlain on the magnetometer data just to the NW of the hypocaust building.